Device and method for providing relevant video content to members of a communication group

ABSTRACT

A process for providing relevant video content to members of a communication group. When a triggering event to provide video content to a plurality of members of a communication group is detected, an electronic computing device assigns a reviewer rank to each one of the plurality of members of the communication group based on a user context associated with the respective members. The device then selects a member with the assigned reviewer rank higher than the respectively assigned reviewer ranks of other members and further transmits a notification to the member requesting permission to provide the video content to the members of the communication group. When a response indicating permission is received from the communication device associated with the selected member, the device provides the video content to the members associated with the communication group.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Communication devices such as mobile phones and tablets are now incommon use by users and provide users with instant access toincreasingly valuable information and resources. Further, video hasemerged as a critical medium for communication and collaboration amongusers. While streaming video has many benefits, the video medium demandssubstantial attention from viewers. The large volume of videoinformation that can be streamed has the potential to overwhelm users.In particular, users working in public safety agencies often need torespond to emergency situations. Streaming large amount of video withoutconsidering their current situation is not beneficial for such users.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying figures, where like reference numerals refer toidentical or functionally similar elements throughout the separateviews, which together with the detailed description below areincorporated in and form part of the specification and serve to furtherillustrate various embodiments of concepts that include the claimedinvention, and to explain various principles and advantages of thoseembodiments.

FIG. 1 is a system diagram illustrating a system in accordance with someembodiments.

FIG. 2 is a device diagram showing a device structure of an electroniccomputing device of the system of FIG. 1 in accordance with someembodiments.

FIG. 3 illustrates a flowchart of a method for providing relevant videocontent to members of a communication group in accordance with someembodiments.

FIGS. 4A-4E illustrate an example incident scenario in which theembodiments described herein can be applied.

Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures areillustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily beendrawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements inthe figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help toimprove understanding of embodiments of the present invention.

The apparatus and method components have been represented whereappropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only thosespecific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments ofthe present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with detailsthat will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the arthaving the benefit of the description herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Users such as public safety officers are often affiliated tocommunication groups (e.g., talk groups) to enable them tosimultaneously communicate with multiple other users within the samegroup. Communicating in the group avoids the need for users to repeatthe same message or establish different communication sessions tocommunicate the same message to different users.

Public safety officers such as first responders are continuously updatedwith incident related information to enable them to effectively respondto the incident. In some situations, it is necessary to provide videothat may be considered relevant for the first responders to performtheir tasks. However, the provider of the video may not readily knowwhether the video is actually relevant for users associated with aparticular communication group. In some cases, the video may be relatedto the incident, but it may not be relevant for consumption consideringthe current situation of different users in the communication group. So,providing a video which is not relevant for consumption by the users maydistract such users from performing their incident related tasks. On theother hand, it is possible that users in the communication group maymiss some valuable information (e.g., information related to weaponscarried by an offender) needed to effectively respond to the incidentwhen a video including such valuable information is not provided to suchusers.

Disclosed is an improved technical process of providing relevant videoto members of a communication group. One exemplary embodiment provides amethod of providing relevant video content to members of a communicationgroup. The method comprises: detecting, at an electronic computingdevice, a triggering event to provide video content to a plurality ofmembers of a communication group; assigning, at the electronic computingdevice, a reviewer rank to each one of the plurality of members of thecommunication group based on a user context associated with therespective members; selecting, at the electronic computing device, fromthe plurality of members, a member with the assigned reviewer rankhigher than the respectively assigned reviewer ranks of other members;transmitting, at the electronic computing device, to a communicationdevice associated with the selected member, a notification requestingpermission to provide the video content to the plurality of members ofthe communication group; and responsive to receiving permission from thecommunication device associated with the selected member, providing, atthe electronic computing device, the video content to the plurality ofmembers associated with the communication group.

Another exemplary embodiment provides an electronic computing device.The electronic computing device includes an electronic processor and acommunications unit communicatively coupled to the electronic processor.The electronic processor is configured to: detect a triggering event toprovide video content to a plurality of members of a communicationgroup; assign a reviewer rank to each one of the plurality of members ofthe communication group based on a user context associated with therespective members; select, from the plurality of members, a member withthe assigned reviewer rank higher than the respectively assignedreviewer ranks of other members; transmit, via the communications unit,to a communication device associated with the selected member, anotification requesting permission to provide the video content to theplurality of members of the communication group; and provide, via thecommunications unit, the video content to the plurality of membersassociated with the communication group.

Each of the above-mentioned embodiments will be discussed in more detailbelow, starting with an example system in which the embodiments may bepracticed, followed by an illustration of processing steps for achievingthe method of providing a relevant video content to members of acommunication group. Further advantages and features consistent withthis disclosure will be set forth in the following detailed description,with reference to the figures.

Referring now to drawings and in particular to FIG. 1, a system diagramillustrates a system 100 including a plurality of communication devices110-1, 110-2, and 110-3, an electronic computing device 120, and acamera 130. The plurality of communication devices 110-1, 110-2, and110-3, can be interchangeably referred to, collectively, ascommunication devices 110, and generically as a communication device110. Although, only three communication devices are shown in FIG. 1 forillustrative purpose, any number of communication devices 110 may bedeployed in the system 100. The communication devices 110-1, 110-2, and110-3 may be operated by users 140-1, 140-2, and 140-3 (for example,public safety personnel), respectively, who may carry or wear thecommunication device 110. In accordance with some embodiments, the users140-1, 140-2, 140-3 and the communication devices 110-1, 110-2, 110-3are affiliated to the same communication group 150. Affiliation to thesame communication group 150 enables the devices 110 to establish acommunication session for simultaneously communicating with multipleother devices 110 that are associated with the same communication group150. The users 140-1, 140-2, and 140-3 and the communication devices110-1, 110-2, 110-3 can be interchangeably referred to as members 140-1,140-2, and 140-3, respectively of the communication group 150. Althougha single communication group 150 is shown in FIG. 1 for illustrativepurpose, any number of communication groups with any number of membersmay be part of the system 100, and further the members 140 may also beassociated with communication groups other than the communication group150 shown in FIG. 1. The communication device 110 may be any computingdevice that is capable of receiving video content over a communicationnetwork 160 and further displaying the video content via an electronicdisplay. In accordance with some embodiments, the communication device110 includes one or more of: a handheld cellular telephone or portabletwo-way radio carried by public safety personnel, for example, policeofficers; a cellular communication device installed in a public safetyvehicle, for example, a police vehicle; a mobile phone; a computertablet; a laptop; a smart wearable, for example, a smart glass or smartwatch; and the like.

The plurality of communication devices 110, the electronic computingdevice 120, and the camera 130 are communicatively coupled via acommunication network 160. The communication network 160 is anelectronic communications network including wired and wirelessconnections. The communication network 160 may be implemented using acombination of one or more networks including, but not limited to, awide area network, for example, the internet; a local area network, forexample, a Wi-Fi network, or a near-field network, for example, aBluetooth™ network. Other types of networks, for example, a Long TermEvolution (LTE) network, a Global System for Mobile Communications (orGroupe Special Mobile (GSM)) network, a Code Division Multiple Access(CDMA) network, an Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) network, an EnhancedData Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) network, a 3G network, a 4G network,a 5G network, and combinations or derivatives thereof may also be used.

The electronic computing device 120 is, for example, a server that isconfigured to provide relevant video content to members 140 of acommunication group 150 via the communication network 160 in accordancewith the embodiments described herein. In some embodiments, thefunctionality of the electronic computing device 120 may be implementedat one or more of the communication devices 110 shown in FIG. 1. Thecamera 130 transmits video content 170 to the electronic computingdevice 120 via the communication network 160. For example, the videocontent 170 includes a combination of still image or moving images,audio, text, and associated metadata. The video content 170 maycorrespond to a public safety incident (e.g., a car accident, a bankrobbery, an explosion, a suspect pursuit, and the like) that is capturedby the camera 130 (e.g., a surveillance camera, dashboard camera of apatrol vehicle, mobile phone camera, and the like) which may be deployednear a location of the incident. In accordance with some embodiments,the electronic computing device 120 detects a triggering event toprovide the video content 170 captured by the camera 130 to members(e.g., members 140) of a particular communication group (e.g.,communication group 150), and further provides the video content 170 tomembers 140 of the particular communication group 150 only afterreceiving a permission from a member (e.g., a single member identifiedwithin the same communication group 150) who has been identified ascapable of reviewing the video content 170 and further making a judgmentcall of whether the video is actually relevant for transmission to themembers 140 of the particular communication group 150. In accordancewith some embodiments, the electronic computing device 120, afterreceiving the permission from the member, joins the communication group150 including interrupting an existing group call associated with thecommunication group 150 in order to provide the video content 170 to themembers 140 of the communication group 150.

FIG. 2 is an example functional block diagram of an electronic computingdevice 120 operating within the system 100 in accordance with someembodiments. The electronic computing device 120 is an electronic deviceincluding a radio frequency communications unit 210, a processing unit220, and a static memory 230. The electronic computing device 120 ispresented as an example computing device that may be programmed andconfigured to carry out the functions described herein, for example, toprovide relevant video content 170 to members 140 of a communicationgroup 150. In some embodiments, depending on the type of electroniccomputing device 120, the electronic computing device 120 may includefewer or additional components in configurations different from thatillustrated in FIG. 2. In other embodiments, the components associatedwith the electronic computing device 120 are implemented in adistributed manner in multiple electronic devices that interface and/orcommunicate with each other to perform the functions described herein.Other combinations are possible as well.

As shown in FIG. 2, the electronic computing device 120 includes a radiofrequency communications unit 210 coupled to a common data and addressbus 222 of a processing unit 220. The radio frequency communicationsunit 210 is a combined receiver and transmitter (e.g., transceiver)having a common antenna 212. The radio frequency communications unit 210has a wireless transceiver 214 coupled to the antenna 212 via a radiofrequency (RF) amplifier 216. The wireless transceiver 214 may be atransceiver operating in accordance with one or more standard protocols,such as a digital mobile radio (DMR) transceiver, a Project 25 (P25)transceiver, a terrestrial trunked radio (TETRA) transceiver, aBluetooth transceiver, a long term evolution (LTE) transceiver, a Wi-Fitransceiver perhaps operating in accordance with an IEEE 802.11 standard(e.g., 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g), a WiMAX transceiver perhaps operatingin accordance with an IEEE 802.16 standard, and/or other similar type ofwireless transceiver configurable to communicate via a wireless network.The wireless transceiver 214 is also coupled to a combinedmodulator/demodulator (MOD/DEMOD) 218 that is coupled to theencoder/decoder 221. In some embodiments, the communications unit 210may additionally, or alternatively include one or more wirelinetransceivers, such as Ethernet transceiver, a universal serial bus (USB)transceiver, or similar transceiver configured to communicate via atwisted pair wire, a coaxial cable, a fiber-optic link, or a similarphysical connection to a wireline network.

The processing unit 220 may also include an encoder/decoder 221 with anassociated code Read Only Memory (ROM) 223 for storing data forinitializing system components and encoding and/or decoding voice orother traffic information (including image data, audio data, video data,text data, control signals, etc.) that may be transmitted or received bythe electronic computing device 120. The processing unit 220 may furtherinclude an electronic processor 224 coupled, by the common data andaddress bus 222, to the encoder/decoder 221, a random access memory(RAM) 225, and a static memory 230.

The electronic processor 224 has ports for coupling to other interfaces(not shown) (e.g., user interface unit, electronic display, microphone,speaker, power source, and the like). The electronic processor 224 mayinclude a microprocessor, a logic circuit, an application-specificintegrated circuit (ASIC), a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), oranother suitable electronic device. In some embodiments, the staticmemory 230 may store operating code 232 for the electronic processor 224that, when executed by the electronic processor 224, perform one or moreof the operations set forth in the figures and accompanying text. Staticmemory 230 may comprise, for example, a hard disk drive (HDD), anoptical disk drives (ODD) such as a compact disk (CD) drive or digitalversatile disc (DVD) drive, a solid-state drive (SSD), a tape drive, aflash memory drive, or a tape drive, to name a few.

In accordance with some embodiments, the static memory 230 comprises adigital assistant 234 that is implemented at the electronic computingdevice 120. The digital assistant 234 may be a software applicationrunning on underlying electronic hardware (e.g., electronic processor224) that is capable of understanding natural language (i.e.,unstructured input/data) and may complete electronic digital-assistanttasks in response to user voice inputs, detection of a contextualsituation, and instructions received from other devices, among otheradditional or alternative type of inputs. In accordance with someembodiments, the electronic digital-assistant tasks include, but notlimited to one or more of: using a video analytics engine to processvideo content 170 received from a camera 130 and further extract (e.g.,by means of object classifiers) one or more attributes or features(e.g., vehicle type, make and color, body shape, hair color, skin tone,location, clothing pattern, voice or vocal characteristics, languagespoken etc.,) corresponding to a person, object, or entity of interestthat is identified from the video content 170; using videoanalytics/audio analytics/natural language processing engine todetermine the intent and/or content of an unstructured input (e.g.,monitored audio/text conversations that are exchanged between themembers 140 of the communication group 150, oral query received from amember 140 of the group 150, etc.,); joining a group call associatedwith the communication group 150 as a virtual member in order to providevideo content 170 that is identified as being relevant to members 140 ofthe communication group 150; monitoring the member interactions on thevideo content 170 presented on their respective communication devices110 and further changing a playback operation (e.g., rewind/fast forwardto an identified time frame, playback only particular video portion,adding annotations etc.,) corresponding to the video content 170presented on the devices 110 and/or providing an updated video content170 based on individual responses received from the members 140; andupdating the video analytics/audio analytics engine using additionalinformation (e.g., a feature related to an object of interest that wasnot previously identified by the video content by the electroniccomputing device 120) received from the members 140 of the communicationgroup 150.

The static memory 230 also stores video content 170 received from thecamera 130 for further processing and sharing the video content 170 whenit is determined relevant to the communication group 150. In someembodiments, the video content captured by the camera 130 is stored at aremote storage server (not shown) and the electronic computing device120 may have access to the video content 170 stored at remote storageserver. In these embodiments, the static memory 230 may instead store anaddress (e.g., uniform resource link (URL)) of the remote storage serverfrom which the video content 170 can be obtained for further processing.The video content 170 includes video data (still or moving images) of anincident area in a field of view of the camera 130. In addition, thevideo content 170 may also include audio data (e.g., speech) andmetadata corresponding to the video content 170. The metadatacorresponding to the video content 170 may include one or more of:person, object, or entity of interest that is identified from orannotated within the video content 170, type and identifier (e.g.,computer aided dispatch (CAD) identifier) of an incident correspondingto which the video content 170 was captured, location at which the videocontent 170 was captured; and identifier of a video source (e.g., deviceidentifier of the camera 130 and/or identifier corresponding to a useroperating the camera 130) that captured the video content 170.

In accordance with embodiments, the electronic computing device 120stores at the static memory 230, or has access to, group information 236related to one or more communication groups (e.g., communication group150). The group information 236 includes, for each communication group150: a group identifier that uniquely identifies the communication group150; and member identifier that uniquely identifies each member 140and/or associated communication device 110 of the communication group150. For example, the communication group 150 may include members 140who are participating in a group call (e.g., audio or video conferencecall). In accordance with some embodiments, the electronic computingdevice 120 is configured to monitor communications (e.g., audio, video,text communications) transmitted between communication devices 110 ofthe respective members 140 in each of the communication groups 150identified in the group information 236. In these embodiments, theelectronic computing device 120 further processes the communicationsthat may include natural language conversational exchanges betweenmembers 140 of the communication group 150 using audio analytics/NLPengine to identify whether conversational exchanges within anyparticular communication group 150 are relevant (e.g., a person ofinterest referred to in the conversation matches with a personidentified from the video content 170) to the video content 170 receivedor being streamed from the camera 130. If the conversational exchangeswithin the particular communication group 150 are identified as relevantto the video content 170, then the electronic computing device 120 maydetermine that the video content 170 is potentially relevant to theparticular communication group 150. In some embodiments, the electroniccomputing device 120 may determine that the video content 170 is alsopotentially relevant to one or more other communication groups (inaddition to communication group 150 shown in FIG. 1) after similarlyidentifying that the conversational exchanges within the othercommunication groups are also relevant to the video content 170.

The electronic computing device 120 further stores (or has access to)user context information 238 at the static memory 230 for each member ofa communication group, for example, communication group 150 for whichthe electronic computing device 120 has determined that the videocontent 170 is potentially relevant. In one embodiment, the electroniccomputing device 120 stores or accesses the user context information 238for members of all the communication groups for which group information236 is available to the electronic computing device. In this embodiment,the electronic computing device 120 uses the user context information238 (e.g., conversational exchanges) of the members of the communicationgroup to identify whether the video content is potentially relevant toone or more of the communication groups. In another embodiment, theelectronic computing device 120 stores or accesses the user contextinformation 238 for only members 140 of a particular communication group150 for which the video content 170 is identified as being potentiallyrelevant. In these embodiments, the electronic computing device 120 maybegin the process of obtaining user context information 238 for eachmember 140 in a given communication group 150 only after receiving anotification (e.g., from a dispatcher via the computer aided dispatch(CAD) server) that the video content is relevant for the givencommunication group 150. The electronic computing device 120 may receivethe user context information 238 for each member 140 from thecorresponding communication device 110, sensor devices (not shown)(e.g., heart rate monitor, location sensor, accelerometer, camera, andthe like) that are associated with the member 140, or a central server(not shown) (e.g., CAD server) that is configured for obtaining (andupdating) in real time, user context information 238 for each member 140of the communication group 150. The user context information 238includes user context parameters selected from the group consisting of:a location (current or historical) of the member 140; an agency (e.g.,police, medical, or firefighter agencies) to which the member 140 isaffiliated; rank, experience, role, skill level, or knowledge level(e.g., member's knowledge about a particular equipment shown in thevideo content 170) of the member 140, conversations (current orhistorical conversations of a member 140 within or outside the group150) or actions (e.g., member's interactions relative to previouslyshared video content) associated with the members 140; sensor data(e.g., health data such as heart rate measured by a sensor) associatedwith the member 140; and incident (e.g., CAD ID) assigned to the member140.

In accordance with embodiments, the electronic computing device 120 usesthe user context information 238 for a respective member 140 of thecommunication group 150 to select a particular communication group 150for which the video content 170 is potentially relevant and further toassign a reviewer rank for each member 140 in the selected group 150.The electronic computing device 120 stores, at the static memory 230,assigned reviewer rank information 240 for each member 140 associatedwith the selected communication group 150. The reviewer rank is assignedto each member 140 of the group 150 based on the user context associatedwith the member 140. As an example, a member 140 who providedinformation about a particular person (identified as person of interestin the video content 170) during the conversation with other members 140in the communication group 150 may have a higher reviewer rank thananother member 140 who did not provide any information related to theperson. In one embodiment, the reviewer rank is assigned based on anoverall correlation between the video content 170 and each parameterassociated with the user context information 238. As an example, amember 140 may have a higher correlation (e.g., 100% correlation) withthe video content 170 based on a matching of a particular locationidentified from the video content 170 with a location (i.e., asidentified from location parameter of the user context information 238)of the member 140, and the same member 140 may have a lower correlation(e.g. 30% correlation) with the video content 170 based on matching of askill set required to identify a weapon displayed within the videocontent 170 with the actual skill set of the member 140. In this case,the electronic computing device 120 determines that the member 140 hasan overall correlation of 65% between the video content 170 and member'suser context and further this member 140 may have an assigned reviewerrank that is lower than another member 140 who has an overallcorrelation of 85% (e.g., with 90% correlation for location parameterand 80% correlation for skillset parameter) between the video content170 and the other member's user context.

The electronic computing device 120 uses the assigned reviewer rankinformation 240 to select a member 140 with the assigned reviewer rankhigher than respectively assigned reviewer ranks of other members 140.The electronic computing device 120 then transmits a notification to theselected member 140 requesting permission to provide the video content170 to the member's communication group 150, and then provides the videocontent 170 to the members 140 of the communication group 150 when itreceives a permission from the communication device 110 of the selectedmember 140.

In accordance with embodiments, the communication device 110 includesone or more similar components as illustrated in FIG. 2. In oneembodiment, the communication device 110 includes a processing unit withan electronic processor, a communications unit, a memory, an electronicdisplay (e.g., to display the video content 170), a speaker, a userinterface unit, and a power source to perform the functions describedherein.

FIG. 3 illustrates a flow chart diagram of a method 300 of providingrelevant video content to members 140 of a communication group 150.While a particular order of processing steps, message receptions, and/ormessage transmissions is indicated in FIG. 3 as an example, timing andordering of such steps, receptions, and transmissions may vary whereappropriate without negating the purpose and advantages of the examplesset forth in detail throughout the remainder of this disclosure. Themethod 300 shown in FIG. 3 can be performed by one or more components ofthe electronic computing device 120, and will be described withreference to the functions and components of the system 100. Some of thefeatures described in the method 300 may be performed via the digitalassistant 234 using underlying hardware such as an electronic processor224 implemented at the electronic computing device 120.

At block 310, the electronic computing device 120 detects a triggeringevent to provide video content 170 to members 140 of a communicationgroup 150. The electronic computing device 120 detects the triggeringevent when the video content 170 received from the camera 130 isdetermined as potentially relevant to one or more communication groups150 identified in the group information 236 stored at the memory 230. Inone embodiment, the electronic computing device 120 monitorscommunications (e.g., video, audio, or text) transmitted betweencommunication devices 110 of members 140 within each communication group150 identified in the group information 236. The electronic computingdevice 120 further processes the communications (e.g., communicationsincluding natural language conversations) using NLP engine to determinewhether the communications are related to the video content 170. As anexample, a particular one or more conversations may be determined to berelated to the video content 170 when the conversation refers to aperson of interest (e.g., a suspect) with particular characteristics(e.g., facial characteristics and/or description of clothes worn orobjects carried by the person) and further when the characteristicsreferred to in the conversation match with the features of a personidentified from the video content 170. In accordance with someembodiments, the electronic computing device 120 is configured toprocess the video content 170 using video analytics engine to identifysuch relevancy between the characteristics referred to in theconversation with the features extracted from the video content 170. Insome embodiments, when the video content 170 corresponds to a live videostream received from the camera 130 (e.g., a surveillance camera), theelectronic computing device 120 continuously processes the live videostream to extract features such as person, object, or entity of interestand further compares the extracted features with real time conversationsto determine whether the live video stream is relevant for sharing withmembers 140 of a communication group 150.

In another embodiment, the electronic computing device 120 detects thetriggering event when a notification received from a dispatcher (e.g.,via a CAD server) indicates that the video content 170 is to be providedto an identified communication group 150. For example, the receivednotification may include the video content 170 (or alternatively aresource identifier corresponding to a storage device at which the videocontent 170 can be accessed) and group information 236 (e.g., groupidentifier and member identifiers) for each communication group 150 forwhich the video content 170 is to be provided. In yet anotherembodiment, the electronic computing device 120 detects the triggeringevent when a user input received at the electronic computing device 120identifies the video content 170 as well as the communication group 150to which the video content 170 is to be provided.

Next, at block 320, the electronic computing device 120 assigns areviewer rank to each one of the plurality of members of thecommunication group 150 (as identified at block 310) based on a usercontext associated with the respective members 140. In one embodiment,the electronic computing device 120 selects a plurality of parametersassociated with user context of a member 140. For example, the selecteduser context parameters may include one or more of: a location of themember 140; an agency to which the member 140 is affiliated; rank,experience, role, skill level, or knowledge level of the member 140,conversations or actions associated with the members 140; sensor dataassociated with the member 140; incident assigned to the member 140;associated device/network capability; and the like. In some embodiments,a level of correlation between the video content and user context isused to assign the reviewer ranks. In these embodiments, the electroniccomputing device 120 dynamically assigns a weight to each of the usercontext parameters according to a level of correlation between the videocontent 170 and respective user context parameter. For example, theelectronic computing device 120 may use a predefined correlationfunction that determines a level of correlation between the videocontent 170 and user context parameter and further outputs a weight thatis calculated based on the level of correlation. The correlationfunction may determine the level of correlation in terms of percentage(e.g., 100% correlation, 50% correlation, 0% correlation, etc.,) andfurther the weight may be expressed in the range of zero to one (0through 1) numerical unit. The level of correlation may be 100% whenthere is an exact match for example, between “a location” mentioned inthe conversation and “a location” as identified from the video content170, and the level of correlation may be 50% when only characteristicsidentified from the conversation matches with the features extractedfrom the video content 170. To provide few examples, the correlationfunction may output the weight as ‘1’ when the level of correlation is‘100%’, weight as ‘0.5’ when the level of correlation is ‘50%’, andweight as ‘0’ when the level of correlation if ‘0%’.

Below is an example table (Table-I) that illustrates the weight assignedto each member 140 corresponding to each of the defined/selected usercontext parameters based on the level of correlation between the videocontent 170 and the user context as identified by the respective usercontext parameter.

TABLE I Example of user context parameters and assigned weights UserContext Assigned Weight Parameter Member 140-1 Member 140-2 Member 140-3Location 0 1 1 Agency 1 0 0 Rank 0 0 1 Experience 0.3 1 0.8 Role 0.5 00.8 Skill/Knowledge 1 1 0.8 Conversations/Actions 1 0.6 0.5 Sensor Data1 0 0 Assigned Incident 1 1 0 Total Weight 5.8 5 4.4 Assigned Reviewer 12 3 Rank

As illustrated in Table-I above, the members 140-2 and 140-3, each areassigned a weight of one (1) for “location” parameter, because thecurrent location of the members 140-2 and 140-3 matches (i.e., a highlevel correlation of 100%) the location of an incident corresponding towhich the video content 170 was captured. Similarly, the member 140-1 isassigned less weight (i.e., a weight of zero (0) ) than members 140-2and 140-3 for the same parameter (i.e., “location” parameter) becausethe current location of the member 140-1 does not match with thelocation of the incident corresponding to which the video content 170was captured. On the other hand, member 140-1 is assigned higher weight(i.e., weight of one (1) ) for the “conversation/actions” parameter thanmembers 140-2 and 140-3 because the electronic computing device 120 hasidentified that the member's 140-1 conversation for example, describingcharacteristics of a suspect, matches with the features of the personidentified in the video content 170. In this case, member 140-3 isassigned a weight of 0.5 because the level of correlation between member140-3 ′s conversation and the video content 170 is determined as 50% andmember 140-2 is assigned a weight of 0.6 because the level ofcorrelation between member 140-2 ′s conversation and the video content170 is determined as 60%. In any case, after the weights are assignedfor each member 140 for all of the selected user context parameters, atotal weight is calculated for each member 140 by summing the respectiveweights assigned to each of the parameters. The electronic computingdevice 120 then assigns a reviewer rank to each member 140. Theelectronic computing device 120 may use a predetermined ranking functionthat ranks each member 140 according to the total weight calculated forthe respective member 140. In other words, the ranking function ranksthe members 140 in a manner, such that a member 140 with highestreviewer rank has a total weight that is higher than respective totalweights of the other members 140. For example, as illustrated inTable-I, member 140-1 is assigned the highest reviewer rank (i.e.,Rank 1) because the total weight calculated for member 140-1 is higherthan the total weights of member 140-2 and 140-3. Similarly, the nexthighest reviewer rank is assigned to member 140-2 and the lowestreviewer rank is assigned to member 140-3 according to the respectivetotal weights calculated for members 140-2 and 140-3. While Table-Ishows that a total of 9 user context parameters are being selected fordetermining reviewer ranks to the members 140 of the communication group150, in other embodiments, more or less number of user contextparameters can be selected for determining the reviewer rank. Forexample, the electronic computing device 120 can be configured toperform correlation and further assign rank only based on the levelcorrelation between the “location” parameter and the “location”associated with the video content 170. In this case, a member 140 withcurrent location matching the location associated with the video content170 may be assigned higher reviewer rank than another member 140 withcurrent location not matching the location associated with the videocontent 170.

In another embodiment, a weight factor independent of the level ofcorrelation between the user context parameter and video content 170 maybe used to determine the reviewer ranks of the members 140 when one ormore user context parameter is considered as more relevant orsignificant for assigning a higher or lower reviewer rank to a member140. For example, when the sensor data indicates that the user isstressed or may not be in a condition (e.g., sensor data indicates thatuser has removed the gun from the holster) or may not be available(e.g., user is driving) to review the video content 170 and furtherjudge whether the video is relevant for providing to the communicationgroup 150, the weight factor may be used to lower the reviewer rank.Similarly, when one member 140 is identified as a highest rankingauthority (e.g., a commanding officer) within the communication group150, a weight factor may be used to raise the reviewer rank. As anexample, if a patrol officer has experience responding to incidents of aparticular type (e.g. burglaries) in a particular part of aneighborhood, this would increase the weight(s) associated with theofficer's knowledge-related user context parameter. Because of officer'sexperience, the officer may recognize as harmless a person identified byvideo analytics as a potential suspect (e.g., because they match asuspect description like “wearing a gray hoodie”). Because of the weightfactor, the experienced officer would be assigned a higher reviewer rankthan a tactical support operator, who may be several miles away and maynot have knowledge about the particular neighborhood and people livingthere.

In some embodiments, a plurality of sub-parameters may be defined by theelectronic computing device 120 for each user context parameter. Inthese embodiments, the electronic computing device 120 may assign weightfor each sub-parameter to each member 140 according to a level ofcorrelation between the video content 170 and sub-parameter, oralternatively based on the sub-parameter itself. For example, when theuser context parameter is defined as ‘conversations/actions’, thesub-parameters may be defined to include one or more of:authoritativeness, verbosity; level of involvement/engagement; role ofthe user as determined from the conversation; keywords; semanticunderstanding beyond keywords; tone; inflection; prosody; availability;and the like. In this example, the reviewer rank may be determinedfurther as a function of the weights assigned to each of thesub-parameters defined by the electronic computing device 120.

In some of the above embodiments, a reviewer rank may be assigned only(i.e., without correlating it to the video content) based on the usercontext parameters of the respective members. For example, the reviewerranks may be assigned based on a level of activity or engagement (asdetermined from user context information 238) by the members 140 withinthe communication group 150. The level of activity of a member 140 maybe determined by processing the conversations or actions associated withthe member 140 using NLP engine. The level of activity may correlatewith one or more of: verbosity of the member's conversations, number ofconversations, tone of the member's conversation, member'sauthoritativeness as identified from the conversation, role of themember, member's availability, and the like. For example, a member withhigher number of conversations or high verbosity may be determined to bemore active or engaged in the communication groups than other members,and accordingly the member may be assigned the highest reviewer rankwithin the communication group. The reviewer ranks may also be assignedbased on the reviewer rankings historically assigned to the members 140of the communication group 150. Further, the reviewer ranks may beassigned based on user input received at the electronic computing device120 or alternatively based on the notification received from thedispatcher via the CAD server. Other variations of the above discussedmethodologies can be performed to adjust the individual weightsassociated with the user context parameter or the total weightcalculated for the member 140 or the overall reviewer rank assigned tothe member 140.

Next, at block 330, the electronic computing device 120 selects a member140 with assigned reviewer rank higher than respectively assignedreviewer rank of other members. In the example shown in Table-I, theelectronic computing device 120 selects member 140-1 because member140-1 has a reviewer rank that is higher than the reviewer ranks ofother members 140-2, 140-3.

At block 340, the electronic computing device 120 transmits anotification to a communication device 110-1 associated with theselected member 140-1 requesting permission to provide the video contentto the members 140 of the communication group 150. In accordance withsome embodiments, the notification includes the entire video content 170or only a portion of the video content 170 received from the camera 130.For example, the portion may include a snapshot of the video content 170with annotations highlighting a particular person, object, or identityof interest that is identified based on processing the video content170. In other embodiments, the notification may also include metadata(e.g., description of the video content or information related toperson, object, or entity of interest identified from the video content170) associated with the video content 170. The notification may alsoinclude an indication for the member 140-1 to review the video content170 and further determine whether the video content 170 is actuallyrelevant for the communication group 150. In some embodiments, thenotification causes the communication device 110-1 associated with themember 140-1 to display the video content 170 (or portion of the videocontent 170) and may further provide a response mechanism (e.g., agraphical user interface button displayed on a touch screen of thecommunication device 110-1) that enables the member 140-1 to eitheraccept or decline the request to provide permission to the electroniccomputing device 120 to provide the video content 170 to the members 140of the communication group 150. In one embodiment, the electroniccomputing device 120 selects, at block 330, more than one member 140,for example, two members 140-1, 140-2 with highest reviewer ranks thanother members 140 in the group, and further transmits a notification, atblock 340, to respective communication devices 110-1, 110-2 associatedwith the two members 140-1, 140-2 to request permission to provide videocontent 170 to members 140 of the communication group 150.

Next, at block 350, the electronic computing device 120 determineswhether it has received a response from the communication device 110-1associated with the selected member 140-1. If no response is receivedbefore expiry of a pre-defined timer, the electronic computing device120 proceeds to block 360 to select a member 140 with next highestreviewer rank. As used herein, the term “next highest reviewer rank”refers to a member 140 with reviewer rank higher than other members 140in the communication group 150 excluding the previously notifiedmembers. From the example shown in Table-I, if no response is receivedfrom member 140-1, the electronic computing device 120 selects member140-2 who has a lower rank than the previously notified member 140-1,but has a higher rank than the other member 140-3 in the communicationgroup 150. After selecting a member 140-2 with next highest reviewerrank, the electronic computing device 120 returns to block 340 totransmit a notification to a communication device 110-2 of the member140-2 with next highest reviewer rank requesting permission to providethe video content 170 to the communication group 150. The functionsshown in block 340, 350, and 360 are repeated until a permission isreceived from one of the members 140 of the communication group 150 orthe notification has been transmitted to all the members 140 of thecommunication group 150.

Returning to block 350, when the electronic computing device 120receives a response from the communication device 110-1 associated withthe selected member, 140-1, the electronic computing device 120 checkswhether the received response indicates a permission to provide thevideo content 170 to the members 140 of the communication group 150. Ifthe received response indicates that the permission is not provided, theelectronic computing device 120, as shown in block 380 refrains fromtransmitting the video content 170 to the members 140 of thecommunication group 150. For example, the member 140-1 receiving thenotification may determine that the video content 170 is not actuallyrelevant for sharing with members 140 of the communication group 150 oralternatively may determine that the members 140 are not available(e.g., members are attending to another high priority task), and mayfurther provide a response (e.g., via the response mechanism provided atthe communication device 110-1) declining to provide permission toprovide the video content 170 to members 140 of the communication group150. In some embodiments, the response received from the communicationdevice 110-1 associated with the member 140-1 may also includeinformation identifying one or more reasons for the member'sdetermination that the video content 170 is not relevant to thecommunication group 150. In accordance with some embodiments, theresponse received from the member may correspond to an unstructurednatural language input (for example, a speech input). In theseembodiments, the electronic computing device 120 uses the NLP engine toprocess the received response and determine whether the member 140-1 hasprovided permission to provide the video content 170. In accordance withsome embodiments, the electronic computing device 120 uses the responsereceived from the member 140-1 of the communication device 110-1 and theassociated reasons (which may be in the form of unstructured naturallanguage) for not providing permission to provide video content 170 tothe communication group 150 to improve the video analytics engine.

As an example, assume that the members 140 of a communication group 150are discussing about a suspect wearing a red shirt. The electroniccomputing device 120 monitoring this conversation determines that videocontent 170 received from the camera 130 identifies a person with a redshirt. Based on a high level of correlation (i.e., based on featuressuch as ‘color’ and ‘clothing’) between the conversation and the videocontent 170, the electronic computing device 120 determines that thevideo content 170 is potentially relevant for the communication group150 and further transmits a notification to a selected member (e.g.,member 140-1) with highest reviewer rank within the communication group150. The selected member 140-1 with the highest reviewer rank receives anotification with a message “potential suspect wearing a red shirtfound, share video with the group?” from the electronic computing device120. This notification may include specific details about the videocontent 170 as well as a snapshot of the person with the red shirt orthe entire video content 170 received from the camera 130. In response,the electronic computing device 120 receives a notification in which themember 140-1 declines the request to share the video content 170 withthe group 150. The received notification also further includes a naturallanguage response from the member 140-1 indicating that the videocontent 170 is not relevant as the person in the video content 170 alsowears a red hat and apparently the person is a pizza delivery driver incontrast to the person being discussed in the conversation who does notwear a red hat. This response causes the electronic computing device 120to continue looking for video content 170 with a person in red shirt andwithout a red hat. In addition, the electronic computing device 120 mayalso update its video analytics engine to store uniform data for pizzadelivery drivers for use in processing video content 170 associated withsubsequent incidents.

As another example, assume that the members 140 of a communication group150 are discussing about a suspicious blue van heading in a northdirection on Route 43. The electronic computing device 120 monitoringthis conversation determines that video content 170 received from thecamera 130 shows a blue van. Based on a high level of correlation (i.e.,based on features such as ‘color’ and ‘type of vehicle’) between theconversation and the video content 170, the electronic computing device120 determines that the video content 170 is potentially relevant forthe communication group 150 and further transmits a notification to aselected member (e.g., member 140-1) with highest reviewer rank withinthe communication group 150. For example, the member 140-1 with thehighest reviewer rank receives a notification with a message “potentialsuspect vehicle found, a blue van heading north on Route 43, share videowith the group?” from the electronic computing device 120. Thisnotification may include specific details about the video content 170 aswell as a snapshot of the blue van or the entire video content 170received from the camera 130. In response, the electronic computingdevice 120 receives a notification in which the member 140-1 declinesthe request to provide permission to share the video content 170 withthe group 150. The received notification also further includes a messagefrom the member 140-1 indicating that the video content 170 is notrelevant as the “blue van” identified in the video is further associatedwith a text “discount plumbing” whereas the “blue van” in theconversation is associated with “masonry repair.” This response causesthe electronic computing device 120 to continue looking for blue vansheading in the north direction on Route 43, but only those with the text“discount plumbing” on them. In addition, the electronic computingdevice 120 may also update its video analytics engine to storeassociations between businesses and fleet vehicle features that can beused in processing video content 170 associated with subsequentincidents.

As a further example, assume that the members 140 of a communicationgroup 150-1 are discussing about suspicious visitors at a given address.The electronic computing device 120-1 monitoring this conversationdetermines that video content 170 received from the camera 130 showssomeone arriving at the given address. Based on a high level ofcorrelation (i.e., based on features such as ‘person’ and ‘address’)between the conversation and the video content 170, the electroniccomputing device 120 determines that the video content 170 ispotentially relevant for the communication group 150 and furthertransmits a notification to a selected member (e.g., member 140-1) withhighest reviewer rank within the communication group 150. For example,the member 140-1 with the highest reviewer rank receives a notificationwith a message “potentially suspicious visitor at the address, sharevideo with the group?” from the electronic computing device 120. Thisnotification may include specific details about the video content 170 aswell as a snapshot of the person arriving at the given address or theentire video content 170 received from the camera 130. In response, theelectronic computing device 120 receives a notification in which themember 140-1 declines the request to share the video content 170 withthe group 150. The received notification also further includes a messagefrom the member 140-1 indicating that the video content 170 is notrelevant as the “person” shown in the video is actually a tenant at thegiven address and further the person is not to be regarded assuspicious. This response causes the electronic computing device 120 tocontinue monitoring the address while ignoring the person regarded astenant and not suspicious. In addition, the electronic computing device120 may also update its video analytics engine to store the person'sbiometric data and status as a tenant for use in processing videocontent 170 associated with subsequent incidents.

In accordance with some embodiments, the response received from theselected member 140-1 are used to update the weights assigned to eachmember 140-1 for the corresponding user context parameter oralternatively to update the reviewer rank. As an example, assume thatthe members 140 of a communication group 150 are discussing about asuspicious green color sports utility vehicle (SUV) of a given brand.The electronic computing device 120 monitoring this conversationdetermines that video content 170 received from the camera 130 shows apotentially suspicious green color SUV. Based on a high level ofcorrelation (i.e., based on features such as ‘vehicle type’ and ‘color’)between the conversation and the video content 170, the electroniccomputing device 120 determines that the video content 170 ispotentially relevant for the communication group 150 and furthertransmits a notification to a selected member (e.g., member 140-1) withhighest reviewer rank within the communication group 150. The member140-1 with the highest reviewer rank receives a notification with amessage “potentially suspicious green color SUV found, share video withthe group?” from the electronic computing device 120. This notificationmay include specific details about the video content 170 as well as asnapshot of the vehicle or the entire video content 170 received fromthe camera 130. In response, the electronic computing device 120receives a notification in which the member 140-1 neither declines noraccepts the request to share the video content 170 with the group. Forexample, the response notification includes natural language responsewith message “I'm not sure, I don't know a lot about vehicles, OfficerSmith is a vehicle expert.” The response causes the electronic computingdevice 120 to select “Office Smith” (e.g., member 140-3) by elevatingthe rank of “Officer Smith” based on the response received from themember 140-1. In this case, member 140-3 is selected even though themember 140-3 has lower reviewer rank than member 140-2. The electroniccomputing device 120 further forwards the notification along with asnapshot of the vehicle to a communication device 110 associated with“Officer Smith.” In response, “Officer Smith” provides a message “No,that is a Brand A vehicle, we are looking for a Brand B vehicle.” Thisresponse causes the electronic computing device 120 to look for greenSUVs of Brand B, and further associate the SUV shape identified in thevideo content 170 with Brand A for use in processing video content 170associated with subsequent incidents. In addition, the electroniccomputing device 120 may update the profile data/user context of themember 140-1 with a tag “not a vehicle expert” and similarly update theprofile data/user context of “Officer Smith” (i.e., member 140-3) to“vehicle expert.” These expertise-related attributes can be used ascontext to assign rankings when a subsequent video content is beingidentified for providing to a communication group 150.

Returning to block 370, when the electronic computing device 120receives a response from a communication device 110-1 associated withthe selected member 140-1 indicating permission to provide the videocontent 170 to the members 140 of the communication group 150, theelectronic computing device 120 proceeds to block 390 to provide thevideo content 170 to each member 140 of the communication group 150. Inaccordance with some embodiments, when the electronic computing device120 determines that the members 140 of the communication group 150 areactively participating in an existing group call that is establishedbetween their respective communication devices 110, the electroniccomputing device 120 may interrupt the existing group call and furthertransmit the video content 170 to respective communication devices 110associated with the members 140 of the communication group 150 via theexisting group call over the communication network 160. For example,when the members 140 are already participating in a video conferencecall, the electronic computing device 120 joins the video conferencecall as a participant and further transmits the video content 170 to thecommunication devices 110 of the members 140 via the video conferencecall. If the call corresponds to a half-duplex talk group call, theelectronic computing device 120 may request a talk group server to granttalk group resources (e.g., talk group channel and floor) so that theelectronic computing device 120 can join the talk group call and furthertransmit the video content 170 that can be simultaneously received byall members 140 of the communication group 150. In other embodiments,the electronic computing device 120 may also transmit the video content170 to each member 140 of the communication group 150 by individuallytransmitting (e.g., via a private call over the communication network160) the video content 170 to a respective communication device 110associated with each member 140 of the communication group 150. In theseembodiments, the electronic computing device 120 may not send the videocontent 170 again to the member 140-1 if the video content 170 to beprovided is similar to the video content 170 provided with thenotification transmitted to the selected member 140-1 at block 340.Alternatively, in these embodiments, the electronic computing device 120may again send the video content 170 to the member 140-1, for example,when the video content 170 corresponds to a live video stream and/orincludes video data not previously provided to the member 140-1.

In accordance with some embodiments, the electronic computing device120, after providing the video content 170 to the members 140 of thecommunication group 150 continues to process the video content 170(e.g., video stream) received from the camera 130 and repeats thefunctions described with reference to blocks 320 through 390 when atriggering event is detected. Similarly, the electronic computing device120 also performs additional digital-assistant tasks after providing thevideo content 170 to the communication group 150 in response to specificinputs received from one or more members 140 of the communication group150. For example, the response indicating permission from acommunication device 110 associated with the selected member 140-1 mayalso include a request from the member 140-1 to perform a task inaddition to providing the video content 170 to the members 140 of thecommunication group 150. The additional request may take form of anunstructured natural language input (i.e. speech content) that isprovided by the member 140 of the communication group 150 in response tothe notification to provide permission. Consider a scenario where themembers 140 of a communication group 150 are discussing about a suspectwho is approximately 5 feet 10 inches tall. The electronic computingdevice 120 monitoring this conversation determines that video content170 received from the camera 130 shows a potential suspect who is about5 feet 10 inches tall. Based on a high level of correlation (i.e., basedon features such as ‘person’ and ‘height’) between the conversation andthe video content 170, the electronic computing device 120 determinesthat the video content 170 is potentially relevant for the communicationgroup 150 and further transmits a notification to a selected member(e.g., member 140-1) with highest reviewer rank within the communicationgroup 150. The member 140-1 with the highest reviewer rank receives anotification with a message “potentially suspect found, someone about 5feet 10 inches tall, share video with the group” from the electroniccomputing device 120. This notification may include specific detailsabout the video content 170 as well as a snapshot of the person or theentire video content 170 received from the camera 130. In response, theelectronic computing device 120 receives a notification in which themember provides permission to share the video content 170 with the group150. In addition, the received notification also further includes amessage “yes, that might be the person, but keep looking for tallerpeople.” This causes the electronic computing device 120 to not onlyprovide the video content 170 to members 140 of the communication group150, but also continue to look (i.e., by processing subsequent videocontent received from the camera 130) for people taller than 5 feet 10inches. In case, the electronic computing device 120 finds anysubsequent video content received from the camera 130 with anotherperson taller than 5 feet 10 inches tall, the electronic computingdevice 120 may provide the video content 170 showing the other person tomembers 140 of the communication group 150. In this case, the electroniccomputing device 120 may provide the subsequent video content directlyto the members 150 of the communication group 150 while bypassing thefunctions specified at blocks 320-360. In other words, the electroniccomputing device 120 may not again request permission from the selectedmember 140-1 to provide subsequent video content 170 to thecommunication group 150. In some cases, the additional informationreceived from the selected member 140-1 may not require furtherprocessing of the video content 170 other than updating the videocontent 170 to highlight a particular object of interest identified bythe member. For example, if the video received from the camera 130 showstwo persons and the selected member 140-1 reviewing the video respondsto the electronic computing device 120 with a message “that looks likeour suspect, the one on the left.” In this case, the electroniccomputing device 120 may provide the video content 170 to the members140 of the group 140, such that the person of interest identified by theselected member is highlighted in the video content 170, but thisadditional information may not require further content processing.

In accordance with some embodiments, the electronic computing device 120may determine that video content 170 received from multiple cameras 130as being potentially relevant to a communication group 150. As anexample, assume that the members 140 of a communication group 150 arediscussing about a suspicious blue van in a downtown area. Theelectronic computing device 120 monitoring this conversation detects thepresence of blue vans in the downtown area from video content 170received from several cameras 130 deployed in the downtown area. Basedon a high level of correlation (i.e., based on features such as ‘vehicletype’ and ‘color’) between the conversation and the video content 170from multiple cameras 130, the electronic computing device 120determines that the video content 170 is potentially relevant for thecommunication group 150 and further transmits a notification to aselected member (e.g., member 140-1) with highest reviewer rank withinthe communication group 150. For example, the member 140-1 with thehighest reviewer rank receives a notification with a message “blue vansfound in downtown area. Here are the attributes of the blue vans: yellowsigns, black wipers, broken window, green bumper. Share the videos withthe group?” from the electronic computing device 120. This notificationmay include specific details about the video content 170 as well as asnapshot of the blue vans spotted in the downstream area or the entirevideo content 170 received from the multiple cameras 130. In accordancewith some embodiments, the selected member 140-1 receiving thisnotification may select/deselect the attributes included in thenotification and further send a request to the electronic computingdevice 120 to provide an updated video content 170 that is filteredaccording to the selected attributes. In response to this request, theelectronic computing device 120 may remove video content 170 receivedfrom those cameras that do not correspond to the attributes selected bythe member 140-1, and may only provide the communication group 150 withthe video content 170 received from other cameras that correspond to theattributes selected by the member 140. When multiple videos arepresented to each member 140 in the communication group 150, theelectronic computing device 120 may cause the notification to presentedin a manner that allows the members 140 to select particular videocontent portions for playback. In addition, the electronic computingdevice 120 may continue to process the video content 170 subsequentlyreceived from the multiple cameras to detect for only those attributesthat are selected by the member 140-1, and may further continue toprovide only those videos to the group 150 that correspond to theattributes selected by the member 140-1 with highest reviewer rank.

FIGS. 4A-4 E show an example incident scenario in which the embodimentsdescribed herein can be advantageously used. Consider an incidentscenario in which responders are on scene looking for a suspectcorresponding to a theft incident and further discussing the incidentwith a tactical support operator. In this example, assume that themember 140-1 is tactical support operator and is operating thecommunication device 110-1. Further assume that members 140-2 and 140-3are first responders on the scene and are respectively operating thecommunication devices 110-2 and 110-3. The members 140-1, 140-2, and140-3 are associated with the same communication group 150 and furtherparticipating in a group call to discuss the incident. The member 140-1has obtained information associated with a suspect from a witness (e.g.,via 911 emergency call). The member 140-1 then provides the obtainedinformation to other members 140-2 and 140-3 via a group call associatedwith the communication group 150. For example, the information may beprovided as an audio message 410 “A witness saw someone run South. Darkjacket & bag” (see FIG. 4A) that is transmitted from the communicationdevice 110-1 of the member 140-1 to the communication devices 110-2 and110-3 of the members 140-2 and 140-2, respectively. In accordance withembodiments, the electronic computing device 120 also listens to theconversations exchanged between the members 140-1, 140-2, 140-3 of thecommunication group 150. In this example, the electronic computingdevice 120 also receives the audio message 410, for example, from agroup call server that is responsible for routing the audio messagesbetween the communication devices 110-1, 110-2, 110-3. At the same time,the electronic computing device may be monitoring video content 170received from different video sources. In this example, the electroniccomputing device 120 determines that video content 170 received from acamera 130 (e.g., dash camera of a patrol vehicle) shows a person with adescription (i.e., “running south,” “dark jacket,” “bag”) that ismatching with the description provided in the audio message 410. Basedon the matching description, the electronic computing device 120determines that the video content 170 received from the camera 130 ispotentially relevant for the communication group 150 in which the audiomessage 410 was transmitted.

The electronic computing device 120 then begins the process of assigninga reviewer rank to each member 140 of the communication group 150 torequest a particular member with highest reviewer rank to review anddetermine whether the video content 170 is actually relevant for themembers 140 of the communication group 150. As shown in FIG. 4B, theelectronic computing device 120 uses a correlation function 420 tocorrelate the video content 170 received from the camera 130 withrespective user context parameters (shown as 430-1, 430-2, 430-3). Thecorrelation function 420 may output a weight that is assigned to eachuser context parameter 430 according to a level of correlation betweenthe video content 170 and respective user context parameter 430 for eachmember 140. Next, as shown in FIG. 4C, the electronic computing device120 uses a ranking function 440 to determine a reviewer rank for eachmember 140 of the communication group 150. The ranking function mayoutput the reviewer rank for each member 140 in the communication group150 according to the total weight calculated for each member by thecorrelation function 420. In the example shown in FIG. 4C, the rankingfunction 440 outputs a highest reviewer rank for member 140-1 followedby members 140-2 and 140-3. The electronic computing device 120 thenassigns a reviewer rank to each member according to the rank output bythe ranking function 440. In other words, the members 140 are rankedaccording to the order in which they are capable of making a judgmentcall concerning the actual relevancy of the video content 170 for thecommunication group 150. In the example shown in FIG. 4C, the member140-1 corresponds to the tactical support operator and it is possiblethat the tactical support operator is identified as the most capable tomake a judgement call on the actual relevancy of the video content 170based on the context that the tactical support operator has obtainedinitial information about the theft incident.

As shown in FIG. 4D, the electronic computing device 120 transmits anotification 450 to the communication device 110-1 associated with thetactical support operator (i.e., member 140-1) requesting permission toprovide the video content 170 to the communication group 150. In thisexample, the electronic computing device 120 may send a notification 450with a message 460 “Potentially relevant person seen that fitsdescription. Should I present the stream to the group?” along with asnapshot of the suspect which may be displayed at the communicationdevice 110-1 of the member 140-1. The tactical support operator i.e.,member 140-1 may review the message 460 and identify that the videocontent 170 is actually relevant for the communication group 150. Thetactical support operator may also provide a response with message 470“Yes” using the response mechanism provided at the communication device110-1. In accordance with some embodiments, the response mechanism maybe implemented using one or more of: voice input, text input, oron-screen buttons. For example, the member 140-1 may be able to use adedicated button/key and/or keywords to selectively transmit theresponse (e.g., to provide permission and/or add additional information)to the electronic computing device 120 while being muted to othermembers 140-2, 140-3 in an existing group call. Alternatively, on-screenbuttons may be provided at the communication device 110-1 to enable themember 140-1 to accept or decline (or select particular videocontent/video source to stream to the group 150) the request to providepermission to provide the video content 170 to the group 150. The member140-1 may also transmit a text message to the electronic computingdevice 120, where the text message includes the response as well asreasons for declining to provide permission.

The message 470 causes the communication device 110-1 to transmit anotification 480 to the electronic computing device 120, which indicatesthat the permission is provided by the member 140-1. In accordance withsome embodiments, as previously described with reference to FIG. 3, thenotification may include additional information that allows theelectronic computing device 120 to perform additional digital-assistantactions 490 (i.e., in addition to providing the video content 170 to thegroup 150) such as continuing to process the video stream received fromthe camera 130 and other video sources, for example, to track themovement of the suspect associated with the theft incident (see FIG.4E). The additional action may also include a request to the electroniccomputing device 120 to add the video content 170 as digital evidencecorresponding to the incident. In response, the electronic computingdevice 120 may store the video content 170 at an evidentiary repository(e.g., at a cloud storage) and may further tag the video content 170 asdigital evidence corresponding to a particular incident.

As shown in FIG. 4E, the electronic computing device 120, responsive toreceiving the notification 480 from the member 140-1, interrupts anexisting group call established between the members 140-1, 140-2, 140-3of the communication group 150 to transmit the video content 170 via thegroup call. In this example, each of the communication devices 110-1,110-2, 110-3 upon receiving the video content 170 from the electroniccomputing device 120 displays a message “Possible suspect detectedfitting description & running South” 500-1, 500-2, 500-3, respectively.The video portion of the message 500 may further include annotationshighlighting the suspect identified from the video content. In oneembodiment, the electronic computing device 120 leaves the group callafter transmitting the video content 170 via the group call. Theelectronic computing device 120 may also leave the group call inresponse to receiving an instruction from one of the members 140 (e.g.,member 140-1 with highest reviewer rank) of the communication group 150.In this embodiment, the electronic computing device 120 may continue toprovide updated video content 170 by re-joining the group call oralternatively by individually providing the updated video content 170based on member input relative to the video content 170 presented at therespective member's communication device 110.

In accordance with some embodiments, when the message 500 including thevideo content 170 is displayed at the communication device 110, themembers 140 may be able to interact with the video content 170 (e.g.,via voice query, on-screen buttons, or text interactions) to control aplayback operation (e.g., change the time frame of the video content)associated with the video content 170 being displayed at the respectivecommunication devices. The electronic computing device 120 may providean updated video content 170 corresponding to a specific frame or a timewindow (with a start point and end point) during which a particularperson, object, or entity of interest has been detected in response to arequest from a member 140 of the group 150. As an example, based on thespecific input received from a particular member 140, the electroniccomputing device 120 may cause video content 170 displayed at theparticular member's communication device 110 to be rewound to a point atwhich the person, object, or entity of interest was first detected orappeared in the video content 170. In this example, the member 140 couldthen individually query the electronic computing device 120 to provideadditional information (e.g., “what do I see now”?) related to aparticular point/time frame in the video content 170. In response, theelectronic computing device 120 may individually transmit a response toa communication device 110 of the requesting member 140 with therequested information, where the response may be provided as anannotation (e.g., by highlighting a particular person of interest) tothe video being presented. Similarly, the electronic computing device120 may also cause the video content 170 to be fast forwarded to a pointor selectively playback a portion of the video content between a startpoint and end point of a time window (e.g., during which a particularevent or person, object, or entity of interest was first detected) basedon input received from the member 140.

Embodiments described herein can be advantageously implemented toprovide only relevant video content to members of a communication group.The accuracy with which a particular video content is determined asbeing relevant to a group is improved by first independently determiningwhether the video content is potentially relevant to the group (forexample, based on the correlation between the video content andconversations exchanged within the group), followed by requesting amember who is most capable in the group to make a judgment call ofwhether the video is actually relevant to the group. Embodimentsdescribed herein also provides a new technical solution in identifyingthe member who is most capable of deciding the relevancy of the videocontent to the group. By providing only relevant video content to users,implementation of the embodiments described may ensure that the userdoes not miss any valuable information from the video content while alsoreducing the amount of video content that may otherwise be transmittedon the network (which in turn reduces the load on the network) orpresented for user's review (which in turn allows the user to focus on ahigher probity task).

The benefits, advantages, solutions to problems, and any element(s) thatmay cause any benefit, advantage, or solution to occur or become morepronounced are not to be construed as a critical, required, or essentialfeatures or elements of any or all the claims. The invention is definedsolely by the appended claims including any amendments made during thependency of this application and all equivalents of those claims asissued.

Moreover in this document, relational terms such as first and second,top and bottom, and the like may be used solely to distinguish oneentity or action from another entity or action without necessarilyrequiring or implying any actual such relationship or order between suchentities or actions. The terms “comprises,” “comprising,” “has,”“having,” “includes,” “including,” “contains,” “containing” or any othervariation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, suchthat a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises, has,includes, contains a list of elements does not include only thoseelements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherentto such process, method, article, or apparatus. An element proceeded by“comprises . . . a,” “has . . . a,” “includes . . . a,” or “contains . .. a” does not, without more constraints, preclude the existence ofadditional identical elements in the process, method, article, orapparatus that comprises, has, includes, contains the element. The terms“a” and “an” are defined as one or more unless explicitly statedotherwise herein. The terms “substantially,” “essentially,”“approximately,” “about” or any other version thereof, are defined asbeing close to as understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, and inone non-limiting embodiment the term is defined to be within 10%, inanother embodiment within 5%, in another embodiment within 1% and inanother embodiment within 0.5%. The term “coupled” as used herein isdefined as connected, although not necessarily directly and notnecessarily mechanically. A device or structure that is “configured” ina certain way is configured in at least that way, but may also beconfigured in ways that are not listed.

It will be appreciated that some embodiments may be comprised of one ormore generic or specialized processors (or “processing devices”) such asmicroprocessors, digital signal processors, customized processors andfield programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and unique stored programinstructions (including both software and firmware) that control the oneor more processors to implement, in conjunction with certainnon-processor circuits, some, most, or all of the functions of themethod and/or apparatus described herein. Alternatively, some or allfunctions could be implemented by a state machine that has no storedprogram instructions, or in one or more application specific integratedcircuits (ASICs), in which each function or some combinations of certainof the functions are implemented as custom logic. Of course, acombination of the two approaches could be used.

Moreover, an embodiment may be implemented as a computer-readablestorage medium having computer readable code stored thereon forprogramming a computer (for example, comprising a processor) to performa method as described and claimed herein. Examples of suchcomputer-readable storage mediums include, but are not limited to, ahard disk, a CD-ROM, an optical storage device, a magnetic storagedevice, a ROM (Read Only Memory), a PROM (Programmable Read OnlyMemory), an EPROM (Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory), an EEPROM(Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) and a Flashmemory. Further, it is expected that one of ordinary skill,notwithstanding possibly significant effort and many design choicesmotivated by, for example, available time, current technology, andeconomic considerations, when guided by the concepts and principlesdisclosed herein will be readily capable of generating such softwareinstructions and programs and ICs with minimal experimentation.

The Abstract of the Disclosure is provided to allow the reader toquickly ascertain the nature of the technical disclosure. It issubmitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpretor limit the scope or meaning of the claims. In addition, in theforegoing Detailed Description, it may be seen that various features aregrouped together in various embodiments for the purpose of streamliningthe disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted asreflecting an intention that the claimed embodiments require morefeatures than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as thefollowing claims reflect, inventive subject matter lies in less than allfeatures of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus the following claims arehereby incorporated into the Detailed Description, with each claimstanding on its own as a separately claimed subject matter.

We claim:
 1. A method of providing relevant video content to members ofa communication group, the method comprising: detecting, at anelectronic computing device, a triggering event to provide video contentto a plurality of members of a communication group; assigning, at theelectronic computing device, a reviewer rank to each one of theplurality of members of the communication group based on a user contextassociated with the respective members; selecting, at the electroniccomputing device, from the plurality of members, a member with theassigned reviewer rank higher than the respectively assigned reviewerranks of other members; transmitting, at the electronic computingdevice, to a communication device associated with the selected member, anotification requesting permission to provide the video content to theplurality of members of the communication group; and responsive toreceiving permission from the communication device associated with theselected member, providing, at the electronic computing device, thevideo content to the plurality of members associated with thecommunication group.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the notificationfurther includes the video content and an indication to the selectedmember to review the video content and further determine whether thevideo content is relevant for the communication group.
 3. The method ofclaim 1, wherein providing the video comprises: causing the electroniccomputing device to join a group call by interrupting an existing groupcall established between the plurality of members of the communicationgroup; and causing the electronic computing device to transmit the videocontent to respective communication devices associated with theplurality of members via the existing group call.
 4. The method of claim3, further comprising: causing the electronic computing device to leavethe existing group call after transmitting the video content to theplurality of members.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein responsive toproviding the video content to the members of the communication group,the method comprising: receiving, at the electronic computing device, aresponse from one of the members the communication group, the responserequesting to provide an updated video content corresponding to a timeframe during which a person, object, or entity of interest has beenfirst detected in the video content; and transmitting, at the electroniccomputing device, to a communication device associated with the one ofthe members of the communication group, updated video contentcorresponding to the time frame during which the person, object, orentity of interest has been first detected in the video content.
 6. Themethod of claim 1, wherein assigning comprises: assigning the reviewerrank to each one of the plurality of members of the communication groupbased on a correlation between the video content and the user contextassociated with the respective members.
 7. The method of claim 6,wherein assigning further comprises: selecting a plurality of usercontext parameters associated with the user context; assigning a weightto each of the user context parameters according to a level ofcorrelation between the video content and respective user contextparameters associated with the user context; and calculating a totalweight that is sum of respective weights assigned to each of the usercontext parameters, wherein a member with highest reviewer rank has atotal weight that is higher than respective total weights of the othermembers.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein assigning comprises:monitoring conversations between the members of the communication group;and assigning the reviewer rank to each one of the members based on theuser context identified from the conversations associated with therespective members.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein detecting thetriggering event comprises: receiving, at the electronic computingdevice, the video content from a camera; monitoring, at the electroniccomputing device, using a natural language processing engine,conversations between the members of the communication group;processing, at the electronic computing device, using a video analyticsengine, the video content to identify one or more of person, object, orentity of interest from the video content; determining, at theelectronic computing device, that the conversations are related to theone or more of person, object, or entity of interest identified from thevideo content; and determining that the video content is potentiallyrelevant for the communication group.
 10. The method of claim 1, whereindetecting the triggering event comprises: receiving, at the electroniccomputing device, an instruction from a computer aided dispatch serverto provide the video content to the communication group.
 11. The methodof claim 1, wherein when no response to the notification is receivedfrom the communication device, the method further comprising: selecting,at the electronic computing, from the plurality of members, a memberwith next highest reviewer rank; transmitting, at the electroniccomputing device, to a communication device associated with the memberwith the next highest reviewer rank, a request for permission to providethe video to each of the members of the communication group; andrepeating, at the electronic computing device, the steps of selecting amember and transmitting the request until a permission is received orthe notification is transmitted to each of the plurality of members ofthe communication group.
 12. The method of claim 1, wherein when aresponse received from the communication device indicates that theselected member has declined to provide the permission, the methodfurther comprising: determining, at the electronic computing device,that the response includes additional information identifying a reasonfor the member's determination that the video is not relevant to thecommunication group; and updating, at the electronic computing device, avideo analytics engine associated with the electronic computing deviceusing the information included in the response.
 13. The method of claim1, wherein the notification is transmitted via a private call to thecommunication device associated with the selected member.
 14. The methodof claim 1, wherein the video content further includes annotationshighlighting one or more of person, object, or identity of interest thatare identified from the video content.
 15. The method of claim 1,wherein the user context includes information selected from the groupconsisting of: a location of the member; an agency to which the memberis affiliated; rank, experience, role, skill level, or knowledge levelof the member; conversations or actions associated with the member;sensor data associated with the member; and an incident associated withthe member.
 16. An electronic computing device, comprising: anelectronic processor; and a communications unit communicatively coupledto the electronic processor, wherein the electronic processor isconfigured to: detect a triggering event to provide video content to aplurality of members of a communication group; assign a reviewer rank toeach one of the plurality of members of the communication group based ona correlation between the video content and a user context associatedwith the respective members; select, from the plurality of members, amember with the assigned reviewer rank higher than the respectivelyassigned reviewer ranks of other members; transmit, via thecommunications unit, to a communication device associated with theselected member, a notification requesting permission to provide thevideo content to the plurality of members of the communication group;and provide, via the communications unit, the video content to theplurality of members associated with the communication group when aresponse indicating permission is received from the communication deviceassociated with the selected member.
 17. The electronic computing deviceof claim 16, wherein the notification further includes the video contentand an indication to the selected member to review the video content andfurther determine whether the video content is relevant for thecommunication group.
 18. The electronic computing device of claim 16,wherein the electronic processor is configured to: joining an existinggroup call established between the plurality of members of thecommunication group; and transmit, via the communications unit, thevideo content to respective communication devices associated with theplurality of members via the existing group call.
 19. The electroniccomputing device of claim 16, wherein the electronic processor isconfigured to: receive, via the communications unit, a response from oneof the members the communication group, the response requesting toprovide an updated video content corresponding to a time frame at whicha person, object, or entity of interest identified from the videocontent has been first detected; and transmit, via the communicationsunit, to a communication device associated with the one of the membersof the communication group, updated video content corresponding to thetime frame during which the person, object, or entity of interest hasbeen first detected in the video content.
 20. The electronic computingdevice of claim 16, wherein the electronic processor is configured to:receive, via the communications unit, the video content from a camera;monitor, using a natural language processing engine, conversationsbetween the members of the communication group; process, using a videoanalytics engine, the video content to identify one or more of person,object, or entity of interest from the video content; determine that theconversations are related to the one or more of person, object, orentity of interest identified from the video content; and determine thatthe video content is potentially relevant to the communication group.